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Orphan Rocker roller coaster crumbles at Katoomba's Scenic World


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Well its not surprising really. The last time i visited ( and posted a trip report here) was 5 years ago and the Orphan Rocker was in bad material shape then. It is a shame that this long gestating ride which has entered the annals of Australian ride history as the ride that never was, has finally been given its last rites.

Hopefully the Orphan Rocker can be resurrected by a professional ride company in some shape or form. I would not put it past the Hammon family to already have a plan regarding this- the whole site is filled with the ambition of their father and the Orphan Rocker was his pet project.

I would not bet against something being in the wings and being installed in honour of the person who had the vision for the entire site.

 

Fingers Crossed anyway!!

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10 minutes ago, Theme Park said:

It would be cool to see an alpine coaster in Australia perhaps something like at goats on the roof at Pigeon Forge in the US.

To be honest, i think this is probably a better idea than trying to build a custom coaster up there. I'd love to see the hammon's do this.

 

 

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I was in Katoomba mid-2015, I hadn't been there since the late 80's.  Beautiful place.

 

I remember that roller coaster being built in 1986 when I went for a school excursion (lived in Sydney at the time) and was super excited at the prospect of riding it..... but it never eventuated :(

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2 hours ago, Theme Park said:

It would be cool to see an alpine coaster in Australia perhaps something like at goats on the roof at Pigeon Forge in the US. 

goat.jpg

This is a great idea- it would be far more cost effective than building a full coaster!! Just looking at their website- they have plenty of options that they can bring if this idea was ever to be fully explored. Seriously think this would be the way to go- there is no installations of this type in Australia and it would be a massive drawcard- especially if it was engineered to circuit near cliff faces for added thrills.This could also circuit the existing carpark without affecting capacity and make as much use of the available space.

However check out this video of another of their products- Who could see Scenic World doing a deal with Wiegand and installing one of these and an Alpine coaster on the site? They could probably do it far cheaper than a single coaster and these guys are used to building in inaccessible and hard to get to terrains- perfect for the Blue Mountains!!

This next video shows the Die Flyer in action at a park owned by Wiegand and also showcases several other of theor product offerings- love the Summer tubing!!! Not sure how Australian safety law would react to that though!!!:D

 

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  • 4 months later...

Bumping a old thread but here is an article on the now officially dead in the water and much lamented never opening "Orphan Rocker" coaster at Scenic World.

The article has an updated interview with Anthea Hammon and details the reasons why the coaster never opened. It certainly does not paint any picture of positiveness for any coaster enthusiast to hold onto for ANY coaster to open on the site.

It does however , contain some new pics of the ride that have never been published to my knowledge and these some insight as to what the ride could have been had it ever opened.

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/scenic-world-md-anthea-hammon-reveals-what-happened-to-the-orphan-rocker-roller-coaster/news-story/40ddd7cf1b0e8570830ab6e67315cec8

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  • 1 month later...

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